I think Madeleine has the swine flu.  She had an armpit temperature of 100.5 and has a horrid sounding barking cough.  She doesn't cough a lot, but when she does it sounds awful.  She has the runny nose and some diarrhea too. 

It's the first time that I know of that one of my kids has had a temperature, and it's not for a lack of me really checking them.  They've just been really healthy.  I blame it on the breast milk and its immunity-boosting properties.

Brian's grandma's funeral is tomorrow.  Sigh. 

Madeleine has been obsessed with clocks recently, of the digital variety.  She's always asking what the different clocks say, and then when it changes, she'll say, "OH NO!" and point at it, and then ask what it says again.  I guess she'll finally learn how to read larger numbers (at least up to 59) from this constant asking about the clocks.  I had to show her that the cable box actually has a clock on it too... I don't think she ever realized it before.  Now I'm asked about the time in both bedrooms, the kitchen (on the stove), and the TV area too.

We went with my brother and grandma to IHOP today, and Grant was super-fussy.  But with the intensity that he's trying to bite me (especially my fingers, ouch!) makes me think he's teething.  So he got some tylenol today, too.

Madeleine's not thrilled with getting tylenol or with having her temperature taken, but oh well.  It's kind of nice that she has the book Dr. Maisy memorized, because she already learned about temperatures, thermometers, and fevers.  We just tell her she's sick like Panda and needs to rest. 

Of course, she had a great long nap this afternoon and now it's ten and she's over there reading with Brian.  A moment ago she suddenly went, "Uh oh uh oh!" and then I heard Brian say "9:47" or something like that.  It's her new obsession. 

I'm going to read to her a moment.... toodles...!

I'm going to try to transcribe a few of the oldest notes I've had lying around forever... a month or more... they probably aren't very meaningful anymore, but at least then I can throw them out and feel guilt-free. 

This page is at least a month old:

--"Oh no!  Polish fell over!"  What Madeleine said when she saw her fingernail polish had come off.

--"Grant 2 crawling steps."  I wrote that... but it doesn't mean much now that I don't know the date!

--Madeleine wrote "I love you".  That was probably about four weeks ago.  The first time I had her write each letter wherever she wanted on a paper, then we cut it out and glued it into the right order and gave it to Daddy.  Since then she's written "I love you" about three or four more times, with the letters in their proper spaces, so that we don't have to cut and paste.  Some letters are more recognizable than others, of course. 

--"Reading Maisy text for other books" -- Madeleine will be "reading" a book, and saying aloud the text of another book that she has memorized, usually the Maisy books.  A popular phrase for when she's "reading" is, "Maisy decided to go camping and all her friends came along."  Or sometimes, "Pitching a tent is not easy!"

--I also wrote this note:  "peeing and again and again and pooping again".  But I'm not sure what I meant!  Maybe it was how she tends to pee a little on her potty, and then more, and more and more... and has to make a big deal out of each dribble.  But maybe it was something else entirely.

Now I can throw one more piece of note paper in the garbage!  Yay!  The baby is a bit fussy (he was eating cheerios in the high chair; Madeleine is sleeping; Brian is playing a video game).  So I guess I'll stop for now.  I got the book Blink at the library today, and it's pretty interesting, so I'll probably play with the baby and read a bit at the same time.  I'm a fairly decent multi-tasker! 

I forgot to mention in the list of things Madeleine didn't like on Nov. 6, she also didn't like applesauce.  Which is totally bogus.  But you know.

On Nov. 8 (yesterday), Brian went back to bed to sleep in after I got up with the kids.  Madeleine had a terrible screaming fit, and we went upstairs till she calmed down.  I assumed that for sure Brian had woken up, so when we were putting the laundry away and Madeleine insisted on taking Daddy's underwear into the master bedroom and putting it away (she always has to put away Daddy's underwear), I thought it'd be fine.  When she came back, I asked her if Daddy was in the bed.  She said no.  I asked if he was in the bathroom?  and she said no.  So I gave up and asked her where was Daddy?  And she said "He's in the dark."  Of course. 

After awhile Brian came in to play with the kids in a little tent we have... and Madeleine let out such priceless gems as "I don't play peek-a-boo!" (a game she loves) and "I don't like that (tent)."  She adores tents!  And usually she is fussing and loud about making the baby get into the tent, but this time she was all upset that the baby was in and wanted him out.  She said, "Baby Grant doesn't like it in the tent!"

Then she said, "I don't like a baby Grant."  To which Brian replied, "I don't think baby Grant gives a rip."  The Brian specifically asked me to write that down. 

Brian's grandma died this morning.  His uncle called like he does every morning at 9:15, and she didn't answer.  When she didn't answer at 9:30 he drove over there and found her.  Her coffee was still warm, the TV was on, the paper was out...  It's hitting me harder than I expected, because she loved my kids so much, and especially Madeleine.  Now Madeleine won't be able to go over there and get her toenails painted as they usually did every Saturday.  They were just over there yesterday afternoon, and Brian thought that his grandma was doing better after having had a really bad week.  Today I found the lollipop that she had given Madeleine yesterday, and gave it to Madeleine to finish.  Then Brian found the bag of apple slices that she had given him yesterday, and Madeleine got to work eating those too.  That really hit Brian, the way the lollipop hit me.  If someone is good to my kids, then it's like they're good to me....  and because I know how sad Madeleine would be if she understood, I feel really sad.  Madeleine doesn't know, of course, and we're not going to tell her or put her in a situation where she'll realize something is wrong.  But she might wonder at some point, for awhile, till she forgets.  Brian doesn't want her to forget, but she will.  She's too young to remember.

Brian found out as we were going into church.  He took Matt's car and drove to our house, left Matt's car there, took my car, and then went to his grandma's house.  When Brian left Madeleine was really distraught.  She knew something was wrong and ran after him screaming up the center aisle of the church.  (Thankfully church hadn't started yet.... Brian was really insistent on getting there early today, and that was a good thing.)  I finally calmed her down, but she was pretty unhappy for quite awhile.  She perked up towards the end of church, though.  But when we went into the parking lot she started asking for daddy, and I said he was gone.  For some reason her diaper came off (she was wearing a dress) and I kept saying we needed to get to the van and we could change it.  But she kept telling me that the van wasn't there, that we wouldn't find the van, that we couldn't go to it, because Daddy took it.  So I tried to explain that no, we still had it... but she didn't believe me till we got there (and I really had to pull her along, because she knew it wasn't there).

So then we drove home (because Grant was sleeping; otherwise we might have gone to lunch with Marcy and Matt and Andy and Spence).  We got to our house and Madeleine said, "Uncle Matt's here!" because she saw his car outside, where Brian had left it.  So I had to explain that he wasn't actually here, but that he would be coming to get his car when Aunt Marcy brought him.  That was somewhat hard for her to understand.

And THEN we went into the garage and my car wasn't there (since Brian had taken it) and she said, "Oh no!!!  Uh oh!!!" and pointed at the big empty spot in the garage.  So I tried to explain how Daddy had taken Mommy's car but would bring it back.  Then she said something about how Mommy's car was broken, or was probably broken...  that must be the only reason daddy would have mommy's car... and then she perked up and said happily, "Daddy fix Mommy's car!" because she remembered the time that Brian recharged my car's batteries with the jumper cables.  And somehow she decided that everything was okay because mommy's car was broken but daddy was going to fix it.

If only it were that simple.

Madeleine can finally jump and get both of her feet off of the floor.  She's been going around and doing it a lot.  It makes her really happy. 

Yesterday we read Maisy Goes to the Museum, and there was a picture of a case of 12 stuffed birds.  We counted them.  But then Madeleine pointed at once of them and said, "That's not a bird, that's a parrot!" 

Grant has been really cuddly with Brian and with Matt today... just happier away from me.  Brian really enjoyed it.

Yesterday on the way home from the restaurant, Grant kept starting to cry, and then Madeleine would cry just as loudly, and he'd stop.  This happened over and over and over....  It was soooo loud and crazy.  Then when he finally stopped Madeleine said that the baby was making funny noises, and she was making funny noises too.  Then he started crying again and she kept saying, "Stop that!  Stop that!  That's enough crying!"  Poor baby.  Sometimes he just wants to cry in peace.  Like right now, when he's finally ready for bed, only having had one nap today, and he starts to fuss and Madeleine yet again says, "Stop that!"